Jeff Evans
Sometimes listening to a mix on your mains (especially up a little louder) for too long can almost make it impossible to get things right.  Yet when the whole mix is bottlenecked into something like this down at low volume it all becomes very clear and easy.

That is so true, the ear's adapt to sound over a longer period ( to the less better )
it is better to take a break and then come back to mix at lower levels usually get better mix result then.
Waiting a day, and having a quick listen, then the first thing you notice you need to change
is probably the most accurate atm then.
 

I don't really understand the question. Mostly because, to me, drums and vocs are probably the main ingredients to a basic pop mix. ie: up front. If they are too loud, turn them down. Actually, I think I usually sculpt a mix around the drums and vox so they tend to be the guiding/louder factor. I guess it all comes down to ones perspective of what is too loud, too soft, to anything.
 
Why'd I just type all that....?
oh well.

there are a number of tools at your disposal, and I think they've all been covered, so I'll just summarize from my perspective:
1) level - can't beat lowering the level a bit to push something back a little
2) EQ - because different frequencies are attenuated differently in air you can use EQ to make something seem a bit more distant. It's subtle, but it works.
3) delay - if a sound source is far away then it takes longer to reach you... simple enough, but beware, you are usually working with insanely short delays. And multiple delays work better, because there will be multiple paths from the source to your ears, and your ears (&brain) place things based on temporal cues. I've had so much fun demonstrating delay tricks when I teach new sound designers how to place sounds in a theatre.
4) reverb - it's a lot of work, but, if you have a really flexible reverb you can place a source anywhere. And actually, it's a combination of delay and reverb - mostly pre-delay. If I did not mention it, it's a lot of work<G>!
5) even dynamics can play a role, but this trick works maybe 1 time in 100. The idea is that some sounds, especially percussive sounds, can be come a bit compressed as they travel different paths. It's usually a frequency dependent compression, so setting it up gets really complex. I can't remember the last time I even tried<G>!
 
So experiment with all these tools (except maybe dynamics) and I think you'll find your mix palette growing!

If you're running the forward-sounding taudio through reverb, try eliminating the early reflections in the reverb program.

I have found the opposite works. Remove the reverb and keep just the early reflections. You will still get a slight sense of reverb (spcae) but without the long reverb tail hanging in the background. Just a suggestion.
 
I read some stuff that Bob Katz was talking about using just early reflections only and no reverb. You can create a sense of space but without all the reverb.
 
It is easy to not understand what the early reflctions actaully do and many just accept them without thinking about them more. They too are important. It is fun to exepriment with sources and just early reflections and listen to what sort of spacial effects you can still get but still with a sense of dryness.
 
Mixing at low volume on a small mono Auratone type speaker is still hard to beat for getting the balance right with everything in your mix.

Jeff Evans
I have found the opposite works. Remove the reverb and keep just the early reflections. You will still get a slight sense of reverb (spcae) but without the long reverb tail hanging in the background. Just a suggestion.

Hmmm, I'm finding conflicting expert advise on this subject.  Roy Izhaki states "Louder early reflections denote greater distance between the source and the listener".  I can't find it now, but I'm certain I read another mixing guru state that removing early reflections "nailed" the source to the back wall.
 
Logical this makes sense, at least for a wide hall with the listener close to the stage.  A source at the front of the stage will have reflections arriving with a noticeable lag.  If the source is at the back of the stage, the relative distance of the initial sound and the reflections will be lower, plus the reflections will be more attenuated due to the greater distance. 
 
In any case, I'm not inclined to argue against Mr. Izhaki's advice, so perhaps I'm totally wrong on this.  If I find the other source of advice, I'll post back here.
 
[Edit]
 
I found this web page where the author succinctly summed up the topic:
 
http://theproaudiofiles.com/width-height-depth-in-a-mix/
 
In it, he writes:
 
Going further: the shorter the pre-delay, the farther the element will seem. And, reverb that is higher in late reflections rather than early reflections will also be indicative of a sound that is further away. Level, pre-delay, and early vs. late reflections — those things all work in conjunction to form a realistic spatial sound.
 
This was on the internet, so, of course, it must be true!
 
 
 
 
 

conflicting advice... about audio... on the internet?????
 
Say it isn't so!!
 
OK, with one or two exceptions, there are very few "right" answers. Music production is part art, part science, and the phrase that I hear most often from my mentors is "it depends".
 
It would take a book - and I am way too lazy to type that much - to explain concert hall acoustics, and if you are trying to mix a concert hall-ish track you really do need to understand what goes on physically in a real hall.
 
In this case, strange though it may seem, you can manipulate the apparent position of a track by manipulating several different factors, including reverb density, reverb length, pre-delay level, pre-delay time, etc. They all interact, and depending on the track you can get great results by tweaking only one (which one???) but sometimes you'll have to tweak them all. "It Depends"

Here is one of the few instances where there is a "rule"... small critical listening spaces have a tendency to be non-reverberant. You can build a space that is large enough to be statistically reverberant, but most of us don't have that kind of room or cash.
 
Why do I mention this? In your monitoring space you not only have to deal with what should be happening in your imaginary space (the one you are trying to create) but also have to deal with what is really happening in your monitoring space. And the two will have conflicts. I think (pure speculation) this is one of the reasons why you will find more advice about tweaking early reflections or pre-delay in the popular press. I could be wrong about that<G>!
 
Just for grins, the only topic that I am aware of that has a single, correct answer (although you will find the contrary answer online) is safety grounds. NEVER defeat the safety ground!!!!

Other than that, well, audio production is what it is, and the art is at least as important as the science, if not maybe a little more so.

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